The Most Perfect Stranger — Chapter 7

"Come in, first of all."

He stepped into the room ahead of her and clicked on the light. So much for the citywide blackout — this room, it seemed, had electricity.

Siena winced once at the sudden brightness, then stepped gingerly inside.

As it happened, Claude Marcel was on the third floor as well, in the room right next door. She had no idea why the room assignments had fallen out that way, but from her standpoint, it was a stroke of luck.

Otherwise she might have spent the whole night trembling outside a locked door.

Having drawn the curtains over every window, he turned back around.

"The night duty staff will have left the city for the day, too. I heard they've been lending out rooms to staff because there aren't enough to go around."

At that explanation, Siena's eyes went wide.

"What? Who runs a hotel like that? What kind of operation is this?"

"It was never built for the general public in the first place, was it. It was a hotel operated only temporarily, for the convenience of officers and nobles traveling on official business — so naturally, it's small."

His answer struck Siena as downright shameless. No — even if that was the original purpose, once you'd acquired the place, wouldn't you expand it before opening?

Claude must have felt the weight of her gaze, because he stopped mid-motion in his bustling about and turned to look at her.

"Gaverum only became a tourist destination a year ago."

Sheepish at the retort, Siena turned away and began circling the room as though inspecting it.

Whether or not he'd meant to unpack, a travel bag and a document case sat hastily perched on the chair and the table.

The layout and furniture arrangement were no different from her own room. She sensed a difference in the finer touches — then remembered that this man was the owner of the hotel.

It's much better than my room, actually.

As she continued to survey her surroundings with her back to him, Claude came into her view.

Still dressed for outdoors, he was holding his document case.

"Stay here for tonight."

"What?"

"I'll be in the hotel lobby. I'll have the staff cut you a new key the moment they arrive tomorrow."

"What are you talking about?"

Siena caught the arm of the man who had said his piece with brisk efficiency and was preparing to leave.

"Isn't this a hotel? You'd have a master key."

At the question, Claude simply looked down at her in silence. Why isn't he saying anything?

"Answer me, don't just stand there. Don't tell me… there's no master key?"

His silence was an affirmative, and Siena's face went white.

"What kind of hotel doesn't have a master key!"

"That room was never issued one to begin with, Siena."

"What room like that even exists? That's absurd."

"None of this hotel's suites are equipped with a master key, for security reasons. As you're aware, this is a border region."

As she listened to his calm excuse, a question mark floated up in Siena's head.

"My room was a suite?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because you were assigned a suite."

Siena reined in the facial muscles threatening to twist into something unseemly.

"…It really doesn't have a master key?"

"It does not. Please don't make a scene — just stay here. I haven't unpacked yet, so you should find everything you need."

Claude doggedly stuck to his script. Watching him, Siena swept her hair back with an expression that said she was beginning to feel dizzy.

The Young Duke of Marcel spending the night in a hotel lobby was not normal. He was the owner of this hotel, no less. How was that supposed to make sense?

"It's not my discomfort that's the issue — you own this hotel."

At her rebuke, he said nothing, apparently thinking the same thing. Siena watched him gather up a few more writing implements and let out a groan of despair.

This is insane.

She must have dropped her key at her brother's residence. Nowhere else came to mind.

Couldn't she just go see him early in the morning and retrieve it? Did things have to be made this complicated?

She was only now peeling back, layer by layer, the dense thicket of rumors that had sprung up around her.

The discord surrounding Hassar. The legitimacy debate within the family, questioning whether Hassar or she was the true heir. Even the doubts about whether she was a suitable match for a prince.

She could not pile Marcel on top of all that. No matter how thoroughly weathered she was to the world's eyes and its gossip, she had no confidence she could survive a scandal with Marcel on top of everything else.

Siena turned and gave the room a long, slow look. Large as it was, the space wasn't divided into separate chambers.

But the sofa was enormous.

"It's only about five hours until dawn. Stay — just share the room."

Just as she'd expected, a crack ran across the face of Claude Marcel, that hopelessly rigid man.

It's not as if I want this. I simply chose the lesser evil to prevent a greater uproar.

"There's no need to overthink it. We're just late, that's all — think of it as sharing the same space for five hours or so."

After a moment of silence, he slowly crossed his arms and raked his gaze down her. His eyes were fierce.

But Siena didn't shrink an inch. If anything, she lifted her chin a little and made her demand in a voice that rang clear.

In moments like these, momentum was everything.

"If you want to nap, you take the sofa. I'll take the bed."

This time his brows knitted sharply. His patience, worn thin from holding out, seemed finally to be showing its floor.

"And why, precisely, would that be?"

"Why what?"

"This is my room, and you're telling me the guest gets to hog the bed."

The tone was courteous, but the edge on it was razor-sharp.

Didn't you just tell me to sleep here a minute ago?

Flustered, Siena blinked rapidly before answering as though in excuse.

"I'm a lady, that's why."

"Funny how you're only a lady when it suits you."

He exhaled a short breath of sheer exasperation and unfolded his arms.

"…Fine."

He looked back and forth between the sofa, the bed, and the desk, held his silence for a few seconds, then turned to Siena.

"Then I have documents to review, so please rest comfortably in the bed."

Contrary to her expectations, Claude accepted the situation with surprising ease. It seemed he'd judged that, all things considered, spending the night apart in one room beat him camping in the lobby.

Watching him approach the desk by the window, set down his document case, and remove his coat, Siena collapsed onto the bed in a heap.

The moment the tension drained away, exhaustion came flooding in.

"Wouldn't you like to wash up first?"

"No, I'm fine. I'm just going to close my eyes for a bit."

"…As you wish."

Perhaps it had been a mere suggestion, because from that point on, Claude moved about the room as though he'd forgotten Siena existed.

He opened his travel bag and hung up his clothes, then even took out a set of loungewear, disappeared into the bathroom to change, and came back out.

The moment she saw it, she squeezed her eyes shut as if she'd witnessed something she shouldn't have. Loungewear.

It wasn't a nightshirt, exactly, but seeing a man in his private clothes — a man who wasn't family, at that — felt uncomfortably intimate.

Claude Marcel is bolder than I gave him credit for, she thought, and was in the middle of sliding stealthily under the covers, having shed nothing but her coat,

"If you're uncomfortable, I can lend you something else to wear."

Having apparently finished setting up his work, he tossed the remark over from the desk where he was sorting his papers.

"Clothes?"

"Can you honestly sleep in what you're wearing?"

She glanced down at herself. She had dressed to the nines today, on the theory that she had to put on a splendid performance for the public.

She'd even laced a corset she never ordinarily wore, and now even a deep breath felt stifling.

"If something goes wrong while you sleep like that, I'll have no way to help you."

At the words breathing trouble, her ribcage felt like it was being crushed to its limit beneath the corset. She ran her fingertips along her sternum and bit down hard on her lower lip.

"…Sorry, but I'll borrow the clothes too."

This was no moment to stand on pride.

Survival came first, didn't it?

As though he'd anticipated this already, he drew the garment from the depths of his travel bag without a moment's hesitation.

"The trousers will be a bit large on you."

He pressed a drawstring into her hand along with them, as if to say, tie it at the waist. Siena took the clothes in silence and looked back up at him with an awkward expression.

Claude cut through her hesitation as though severing a thread.

"There's no way around it. Go change."

"My…"

Siena let the word trail off and hung her head, faltering.

Claude tilted his ear toward her, wondering what she meant — and then, at what came next, his face went rigid.

"…my honor—"

"Spare me the dramatics and go change."

"Okay."